Category: SkepDoc’s Corner
A column by Harriet Hall
Will Intermittent Fasting Help You Lose Weight?
Are you having trouble losing weight? So are a lot of other people. Have you tried intermittent fasting? Should you? According to a survey by the International Food Information Council, intermittent fasting was the most popular weight loss diet in 2018. Some have called it a fad whose adverse effects have not been sufficiently studied, and …
Should I Get a Second Booster?
In China, COVID-19 vaccination is required for everyone and sometimes force and coercion are used. In the United States, vaccines are never required. No one is forced to get vaccinated, although consequences have been imposed; for instance, the unvaccinated have been refused employment for certain jobs and not allowed to attend public schools. The CDC …
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
I have long been skeptical of the diagnosis of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Here’s what I wrote about it four years ago in an article in Skeptic magazine: An episode of ABC’s Nightline news show about Dr. Rea’s controversial diagnoses and treatments aired in 2009. I was appalled by the interviews with a patient diagnosed by Dr. Rea as …
Can These Eyedrops Replace Reading Glasses?
You’ve probably seen the ads. Vuity is a new prescription eyedrop. An article in Scientific American says, “These drops could replace your reading glasses.” Could they really? How can that be? Do they really work? Kind of, sort of … for some people … for a few hours … maybe. It’s no panacea. The devil …
Dog Food Is Not Evidence
An individual told me in an email that I was wrong about dietary supplements and urged me to read a bag of dog food to get better informed. I get my information from peer-reviewed, randomized, controlled scientific studies, not from dog food bags. I don’t have his permission to share his email, and I don’t …
Number-One Pharmacist Recommended
Some drugs are being marketed with the claim that they are the number-one recommendation of pharmacists. This is unfortunate. A minority of pharmacists have received additional training in clinical pharmacy and provide direct patient care as part of a team of health care providers managing complex cases. Most pharmacists have not had such training and …
A Disappointing Testimonial for Whole Body Cryotherapy
As a longtime subscriber to Reader’s Digest, I love the jokes and enjoy the stories, but I don’t trust their forays into science. I was particularly disturbed by an “I tried it” feature on whole body cryotherapy (WBC) in the latest issue (December 2021/January 2022). The writer starts by saying doctors have known the power …
Two New Promising COVID-19 Drugs – Analysis and Questions
The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over yet. Despite the success of vaccines, people continue to get the disease. Most cases are in the unvaccinated, but even those who have been fully vaccinated can have “breakthrough” infections. Relief appears to be in sight. Two new antiviral drugs promise effective treatment in pill form. Well-designed randomized controlled clinical …
UPWalker: A $649 Solution for a Non-Problem
Sometimes TV commercials are more entertaining than the programs. My husband and I laugh every time we see the commercials for the UPWalker on TV. According to their website: “Unlike walkers that force you to hunch over putting painful pressure on your wrists and back, the UPWalker is designed to support you in a secure …
Do Surgeons Who Wear N95 Masks Have Lower Oxygen Levels and Make More Mistakes?
An individual who was both an anti-vaxxer and anti-masker claimed that “studies were done that show that surgeons who wore N95 masks for extended periods of time were shown to have decreased oxygen levels and were more prone to mistakes.” His argument was “imagine what that would do to kids who were forced to wear masks all day …
Living with Uncertainty
Uncertainty is uncomfortable. It is only natural to want certainty. It is more comfortable to be certain and wrong than to be uncertain. Like anyone else, I would like to be comfortable, but I think truth matters. I’d rather be uncertain than wrong; wouldn’t you? As Voltaire said, “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty …
Green-Lipped Mussels for Arthritis
What are green-lipped mussels? My imagination conjures up a SpongeBob SquarePants episode featuring a clam-like creature with green lips, and I can’t help wondering what would happen if they applied red lipstick? Imagination can be fun; but to get back to reality, green-lipped mussels are a shellfish naturally found in New Zealand and now cultivated …
The FDA Blundered When It Approved Alzheimer Drug
The FDA has a difficult job. It is understaffed and underfunded. It has to walk a very fine line between prematurely approving a new drug that may turn out to be useless or even harmful and rejecting or delaying approval of a drug when earlier approval might have been saving lives. On the whole, I …
Vaccine Refusers Are Not Stupid
We now have several vaccines for COVID-19. They have been adequately tested. They are safe and effective; and as more people have gotten vaccinated, infection rates, hospitalization rates, and death rates have fallen. Herd immunity may be in sight. Getting vaccinated seems like a no-brainer, but there are still a lot of people who are …
COVID-19 Tests: Can You Trust the Results?
If your COVID-19 test was negative, can you breathe a sigh of relief? What if it’s a false negative? If it was positive, is that reliable evidence of infection or might it be a false positive result? How trustworthy are these tests? As with so much in science, the answer is complicated; it’s not a …
No, No, No, NO! Testimonials Are Not Evidence!
We are programmed to respond to testimonials. Blame evolution. For most of human history, we had only two ways to learn about the world: our own observations and what other people told us about their experiences. Gathering information from others gave us a survival advantage. Unfortunately, those testimonials can be unreliable. We now have something …
‘Clinically Tested’—What Does that Mean?
They used to call useless treatments “snake oil.” We don’t hear that term anymore; now they may be called “dietary supplements” or “natural remedies.” A dietary supplement may contain a single herb or a combination of several ingredients. The ads frequently say they have been “clinically tested” or “clinically proven.” Do you believe that? I …
Self Esteem Is Overrated
Most people believe that fostering self-esteem in children will have many benefits, from happiness to better school performance, but that belief is not supported by the evidence. We are encouraged to reward children and not punish them, to praise them not only for real accomplishments but also for trivial successes and even failures (“everybody’s a …
Adele’s Sirtfood Diet
I recently got an email newsletter from TRC Natural Medicines. One of the articles was “Understanding the Hype Behind Adele’s Sirtfood Diet.” It’s brief enough to quote in its entirety: “English singer-songwriter Adele has made headlines in recent months for her dramatic weight loss. You might start getting questions about the diet she followed—it’s called the …
Don’t Ice Sprains
Ankle sprains are common; as a family physician, I treated a lot of them. My most memorable ankle sprain patient was a young woman I saw during my residency training. Doctors had diagnosed a sprain. They gave her crutches and told her not to try to bear weight on the injured ankle until the pain …
Bogus Treatments for Bogus Diagnosis Are Killing Patients
Lyme Disease Is Real Lyme disease is an infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. It is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. According to the CDC, “typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.” A …
New Contraceptive Drug Makes No Sense
I subscribe to The Medical Letter to learn about new drugs. I am frequently appalled by their cost. For example, a year’s treatment with Ozanimod, a drug recently approved for multiple sclerosis, costs $84,800. And some new drugs cost much, much more than that. A gene therapy drug from Novartis currently holds the record: 2.1 …
Are You Dehydrated?
Do you worry that you are or might become dehydrated? Do you feel guilty if you don’t drink eight to ten glasses of water a day? Are you tethered to a water bottle? Have you been frightened by warnings on the internet? “Eau” dear! “Water” you thinking? You may have been “flooded” with a tsunami …
Deuterium Depleted Water
I recently learned there was a thing called deuterium depleted water (DDW). First, I asked “Whaat?” and then I asked “Why?” The atoms of the most common isotope (99.99 percent) of hydrogen contain only one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with one neutron and one proton in its …
One Less Thing to Worry About: Undercooked Pork
We have plenty of things to worry about: the pandemic, global warming, the economy, racial tensions, and much, much more. But here is some good news to ease the worry burden: you can stop worrying about eating undercooked pork. Most people agree that undercooked pork is bad, but not everyone can explain why. The “why” …
Pandemic Stories in the News: Something to Laugh About
Steven Novella said it best: “Pandemics breed more than a contagious disease. They spread fear, misinformation, pseudoscience, and exploitation.” I would add, “and humor.” I have written about COVID-19 before, first on the February 4 in an article on Science-Based Medicine about how alternative medicine had jumped on the bandwagon, then again in my March …
COVID-19: A Field Day for Scams and Misinformation
Our world has been disrupted due to legitimate fears about COVID-19. People are afraid, and unscrupulous and/or misinformed people have been quick to exploit those fears. The FTC has offered advice for consumers to help them avoid coronavirus scammers. On March 19 they published Part 2, and the FTC and FDA have sent out warning …
A Test for Earlier Diagnosis of Autism? Not Convincing
Autism is diagnosed on clinical grounds by observing the child’s behavior. There is no blood test or any other objective test to diagnose it. But that hasn’t stopped people from claiming to have found one. Among other candidates, a saliva test has been proposed, and now an eye scan. In summer 2019, a press release …
Bigfoot Reconsidered
I recently came across an advertisement for a “One-Of-A-Kind Adventure,” a Bigfoot Adventures Tour Company endeavor that offers single-day, multi-day, and even Bigfoot-by-bike experiences. Their website promises to take you to sites where Bigfoot has been spotted numerous times and tracks have been found. They utilize “proven methods to call one in” and carry high-tech …
Why ‘Trying It for Yourself’ Is a Bad Idea
When I write about a treatment that has been inadequately tested (or that has never been tested or has been tested and shown not to work), someone always asks if I have tried it myself. Apparently, they believe it really works, and if only I would try it for myself, I would believe too. If …
Don’t Believe the Ads: Dietary Supplements Don’t Cure Tinnitus
Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, is a hallucination. The sounds can’t be heard by anyone else; they are illusory sensations produced by the brain. For some, it is only a minor annoyance; for others, it interferes with sleep and quality of life and sometimes causes severe suffering. There is no cure. Nothing will stop …
The Pharma Shill Gambit Is Stupid
I am regularly accused of being a shill for Big Pharma. They are supposedly paying me lavishly to promote their business by writing good things about pharmaceuticals and bad things about alternative medicine. It has become a running joke in our household. My husband keeps asking me where I’m hiding the money, and I keep …
You Can’t Pray the Gay Away
Tolerance for the full spectrum of human sexuality has made great strides. LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issues are frequently in the news. Same-sex marriage is now legal in all U.S. states and in numerous other countries around the world. But in seventy-two countries, homosexuality is a crime, and in thirteen countries, gay …
How Not to Do Science
According to research methodologist R. Barker Bausell, “CAM [complementary and alternative medicine] therapists simply do not value (and most, in my experience, do not understand) the scientific process.” They have seen their patients improve, and that’s all the “evidence” they think they need. They don’t understand that they may have been deceived by the post hoc …
Estaba equivocada (y apuesto a que tú también)
Para mí, uno de los grandes placeres del escepticismo es descubrir que me equivoqué en algo. Más que sentirme culpable por mi error, me siento orgullosa por haber aprendido algo y tener una mejor comprensión de la realidad. Cuando los escépticos encuentran una afirmación cuestionable, hacen algo para chequear los hechos. Pero ¿qué pasa si …
I Was Wrong (and I Bet You Were Too)
For me, one of the great pleasures of skepticism is finding out I was wrong about something. Rather than feeling guilty about my error, I feel proud that I have learned something and have a better understanding of reality. When skeptics encounter a questionable claim, they do some fact-checking. But what if they don’t realize …
Clínicas Ambulatorias para Inyectarse Intravenosas – Una Mala Idea
Solo tiene que entrar. No podría ser mejor. No se necesita turno ni orden médica — simplemente ingrese a clínica ambulatoria y aplíquese la infusión de nutrientes vía intravenosa (IV) a elección. Es una moda pasajera. Hay salones IV, bares de goteo, negocios de boutiques de vitaminas, puestos de rejuvenecimiento, incluso servicios IV móviles que …
Walk-In Clinics for IVs—a Bad Idea
Just walk in. It couldn’t be more convenient. No appointment needed, no order from a doctor—you just walk into a storefront clinic and get the IV nutrient infusion of your choice. It’s a popular fad. There are IV lounges, drip bars, boutique vitamin drip shops, rejuvenation stations, even mobile IV services that come to you. …
Cuidado y Nutrición de la Vagina
Según lo visto en Skeptical Inquirer Volumen 42, Número 5. En nuestra sociedad, el estatus de las mujeres continúa mejorando. Como dice la publicidad de cigarrillos, “Has recorrido un largo camino, muchacha”. Ciertamente, parece que ahora tenemos Igual Oportunidad de Charlatanismo. El sexo vende. Siempre fue un objetivo popular para el charlatanismo, pero éste solía …
Measles Was Gone, but It Came Back
Measles was eliminated from the United States in 2000. It could have stayed gone, but it didn’t. As of April 19, 626 cases had been reported to the CDC so far in 2019 in multiple states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, …